Charles de Gaulle was right. The French are often right.

"England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her exchanges, her markets, her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has in all her doings very marked and very original habits and traditions."

"[T]he question…[is] whether Great Britain can now place herself like the Continent and with it inside a tariff which is genuinely common, to renounce all Commonwealth preferences, to cease any pretence that her agriculture be privileged, and, more than that, to treat her engagements with other countries of the free trade area as null and void — that question is the whole question."

I don't like the EU at all. But I love Europe. And I find that a thinking French person is usually right about most things.

Winston Churchill said it best & Charles de Gaulle understood as well:

“We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed. If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.”

We are of course connected to Europe, allies, neighbours & friends but we should also be an independent country in charge of our own country & separate from Europe